6 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Oct 30)

1. Return Of The Emasculator

Kurt Angle Stephanie McMahon
WWE.com

Oh, don’t worry Steph, some of us didn’t miss you at all.

It’s not the idea of a heel authority figure is a terrible one on its face – WWE rode the evil Mr. McMahon character to great heights in the 90s – but Stephanie McMahon is not the person to play top villain.

Stephanie actually plays heel very well, but there’s one thing she almost never does: get her comeuppance. And that’s a critical – if not essential – part of being a heel. Sure, her charges lost often when she was part of the Authority, but that’s not the same thing as her personally suffering a defeat.

Think about the last few years. Aside from Vickie Guerrero tossing her into mud, Ronda Rousey grabbing her, and Seth Rollins indirectly knocking her through a table, when has Steph really gotten her comeuppance?

Meanwhile, the Raw commissioner emasculates everyone around her, verbally putting down all talent without fear of reprisal – because it never comes. And so, she cut down Kurt Angle Monday, making an Olympic gold medalist and multi-time world champion cower and grovel as she threatened to fire him.

If there was any chance that she’d face her just deserts for her actions, this might rate lower on this list or even be a positive having her back, but until proven otherwise, this is a solid negative.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.